


Funny Fish

by DaScribbla



Category: The Night Manager (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Episode 1, Hotel Sex (kind of), M/M, Open Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Richard Roper's Unfathomable Motives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 21:33:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7591219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaScribbla/pseuds/DaScribbla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pine sat numbly on the train back home with dawn breaking weakly across the sky and craved a cigarette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Funny Fish

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wrote the initial sequences of this back when the first episode aired. This is the fleshed-out and polished version. 
> 
> I just wanted to write it. 
> 
> NOTE: I tagged this as dub-con because Jonathan Pine isn't really sure whether he wants any of this or not. Weird things happen with consent in this fic.

The truly bizarre thing about Richard Roper was that he didn’t seem to sleep. He and his guests stayed awake long enough to be almost underfoot during Pine’s shift, but he had heard from the other staff how Roper had ordered a continental breakfast for himself and his girlfriend at eight the next morning. And when Pine arrived again, there was Roper and the rest of them, still somehow refreshed.

“Do you really stay awake all night?” the girlfriend, Miss Marshall, had asked. _Do you really stay awake twenty-three out of twenty-four hours every day?_ he’d wanted to reply. He wished they’d all retire at decent times like human beings and leave the nighttime to him.

And every evening, without fail, Roper would join him on his much-needed cigarette break. 

He’d never really thought about the sound of evil. For a long time, he’d always associated it with the hiss of the gases back during the war. Or perhaps the snarl of Freddie Hamid. Or perhaps the whimper of Sophie’s frightened dog, its coat covered in its mistress’s blood. 

But hearing evil speak in calm, reasonable, English tones right beside you, and then ask for a fag, and mention that you can see Jupiter from here if you look closely enough -- it was disconcerting, at the very least.

“Where did you say it was?”

Roper put an arm around his shoulder and pointed up at the heavens, ignoring how Pine stiffened at the contact. 

“Just… there.” He indicated a point of life that was brighter than the others. “You’re lucky. Being up here in the mountains makes for much clearer nights.”

He felt colder after Roper took his arm away; he rolled his shoulders to try and make up for the loss of heat. 

“I never was much of an astronomer,” he said, trying to cover for himself. 

“Really? Always liked mapping things out.” He had that upper-class manner of speaking, Pine noted, where one dropped the pronoun entirely. Roper abruptly changed the subject. “Got a girl?”

“Nosir.” His military training had served him well in this regard. It was habit for him to call everyone _sir_.

“Boy?”

“Er -- no.” 

Roper gave a huff of laughter. “Not your area then?” He didn’t wait for Pine to reply. “Huh. Corky had you pegged for the type.”

“I’m afraid not, no.” After a brief pause, he added, “Kinsey Two, like anyone in the army.”

Another huff of amusement, but Roper looked over at him in some interest. 

“You were an army man?”

“For a few years, yeah.”

Pine didn’t know what to make of the expression on the other man’s face. Suddenly self-conscious, he scratched at his neck, feeling the slight roughness of growing stubble. Ugh. He’d shave before he left for work tomorrow. 

“What time is it?” 

Pine checked his watch. 

“About three o’clock, sir.” 

“So I imagine you’d have another three hours before you can go home.”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“What do you do when you don’t work?”

For a moment, Pine considered spinning him the usual lies -- _cooking_ , or perhaps _I’m writing a novel_ , or something -- but he got the sudden impression that Roper would see through all of it. What was the point?

“I sleep,” he said finally. Roper studied him for a moment.

“Water on the prayer wheel of life,” he said at last. “Work, sleep, work, sleep, work.” He cocked his head to one side, suddenly curious. Almost suspicious, in a way. “How often do you talk to other people, Pine?”

“When I work.”

“Dear me,” he said, still looking at him. “It would seem you’re little more than a machine. Elegantly crafted to be sure --” and Pine realized that Roper’s eyes had just run with barely concealed appreciation over his body -- “But a machine no less.”

They held eye contact and Pine shivered.

“Are you cold?” Roper asked. Pine found himself nodding. And just like that, Roper wrapped an arm around his shoulders and escorted him inside, pressing him close. Pine walked rigid, unsure of what the older man was playing at.

Back inside, Roper brushed a few snowflakes off Pine’s lapel.

“No wonder you were cold,” he said. “No coat.” He didn’t know why the observation made him feel so juvenile all the sudden, any more than he knew why Roper had suddenly taken it into his head to care for him. “You strike me as a very lonely man, Mr Pine,” he added suddenly. They weren’t touching at all, but Pine could still feel the weight of his hands on his shoulders. How he longed to protest, to say that he had lots of friends, really, but he could not summon up the strength to do it. 

“Yes, sir.”

It felt good to admit it to someone at last. What had he been while living here? Jonathan Pine, night manager. Charismatic, but never speaking unless he was working. Through the hum-drum cycle of it all -- waking up, working, going back to lie on his couch and try to get back to sleep -- he wanted to lose his mind. He’d read about what isolation did to human psychology; he knew how badly it could fuck up a person. He knew it _had_ fucked him up. Well. He suspected that’s what he’d wanted after Cairo. 

“You seem very… _sad_ to me, Pine.” 

Pine finally worked up the nerve to speak his mind.

“Why are you doing this, sir?” Roper half-smiled.

“Because I pity you. Men aren’t meant to live in this fishbowl existence. Life isn’t a schedule.” He pronounced it _shed-ule_. “It’s a dance.” Pine felt a tug around his neck and realized with a start that Roper was loosening his tie. He met his gaze in alarm. “If you want me to stop,” Roper said softly, “just say the word and I will.”

“Why are you doing this…” His voice trailed into nothing as Roper’s fingers brushed against his neck, against the vein pulsing there. He shivered. It had been so long since he’d been truly touched. The hand went to cup his cheek and Pine angled into it without really intending to. He’d forgotten how addictive physical contact was. 

The worst man in the world lifted Pine’s hand, gently pulled back the cuff of his sleeve, and brushed his lips against the soft underside of his wrist. In spite of himself, he closed his eyes and exhaled. The resumed tugging around his neck told him that his tie was being loosened once more. When he opened his eyes, he found Roper working at the top buttons of his shirt. He bent his head to place a light kiss within the hollow of his throat. Even through the pounding of his heart in his ribcage and sensation of blood rushing between his legs, he realized that Roper still had not answered his question _why._

Over Roper’s shoulder, he could have sworn he saw Sophie staring at him with eyes that dully accused, with a face battered and bloody. 

_“Why are you doing this?”_ she seemed to say. Or rather, the question rang in her eyes. _“Why?”_

The answer came to him along with a sudden lurch in his stomach.

_Because he’s nice to me._

_Because he asked about me and was sympathetic when he heard how I’ve been living._

_Because I’m desperate for any kind of affection_.

The pressure of Roper’s hands at the lapels of his jacket brought him back to the now. 

“If you want to stop, tell me and I will.”

Somehow, Pine didn’t doubt his word. 

The jacket slipped from his shoulders to land on the floor behind him, and Roper’s coat followed. Pine felt sick, but he couldn’t battle the forces telling him to run away. This was the worst man in the world -- Sophie’s phrase kept coming back to him -- and he was just as guilty of Sophie’s death as Roper. Perhaps that was what connected them.

He _wanted_ to be touched. It had been too long.

“If you want me to stop…” Roper said again. “Just tell me.” His hand ran down his stomach, over his thigh.

“Don’t,” he whispered. And hated himself.

It was accomplished quickly, with puffing breath, Pine’s head unintentionally resting against the older man’s shoulder. His trousers and underwear hung around his knees, and even though they’d taken cover in a nearby broom closet Pine was still terrified of being caught. What would it look like -- the night manager, well-respected, clinging to a male guest while that guest brought him off with his hand? He could only hope that Roper would keep his mouth shut about the whole thing. Meisters had a damn-near spotless reputation and the last thing it needed was a story about its tart of a night manager.

His own hand closed around Roper’s erection and after a few pulls, the older man groaned deeply from the back of his throat. 

“I can tell you pulled triggers for a living,” he said, and Pine laughed weakly into his neck. His hips thrust forward into the hollow created by Roper’s fist. An involuntary, strangled noise came from deep within himself, and he wasn’t prepared when Roper brought his free hand to the back of his head to stroke his hair with a murmured word of comfort. 

“Hush… don’t want anyone to hear.”

They finished more or less simultaneously and then peeled themselves apart with a rueful laugh. Suddenly, Pine couldn’t meet the man’s eyes. There was a voice shrieking his head -- _what have you done?!_

Making do with some paper towels they found near the back of closet, they cleaned up as best as they could. That lurch in his stomach from earlier had magnified into nausea. Handjobs were handjobs, he tried to tell himself. But now that the thing itself was over...

_“He is with Mr. Roper._ ”

_“_ Just _my key, please.”_

_“He sells destruction and laughs.”_

“Good night, Pine.” Roper didn’t seem to notice his discomfort. In fact, his tone was completely businesslike. But warm, almost affectionate. 

“Good night, sir.”

And then Pine was alone in the closet, legs still weak. He listened with the attention of a soldier for the sound of Roper’s retreating footsteps to fade away as his stomach roiled.

When the coast was clear, he left the closet and bolted to the nearest bathroom to vomit into the toilet. He was confused, almost frightened. He didn’t understand how any of this had really happened.

After he’d emptied his belly of dinner, his skin felt cold and clammy; his shirt clung damply to his skin. Coming back to his desk after retrieving his fallen jacket from the hallway, Pine ground to a halt in the doorway as the world seemed to slide to the far left for a moment. His heart rate quickened, hammering in his ears and in his ribcage. Then everything righted itself at once. 

Herr Strippli, manning the front desk, was watching him in concern. 

“Herr Pine, you look very pale,” he said.

“I don’t… I don’t feel so well,” he managed. He could still taste bile on tongue, despite rinsing his mouth out under the faucet before he left the bathroom. Sophie’s voice wouldn’t leave his head. _What have you done, Jonathan? What have you done?_

Strippli made him go home early. 

 

Roper and all his associates were staying for a week, evidently on some sort of vacation from the pressures of business. They had frequent meetings with other ungodly-rich people there in the wood-paneled lobby. From his desk, he could see flashes of Roper and the girlfriend mingling with each guest.  Once, Roper looked back to catch him staring. Pine went cold even as his body betrayed him and kindled a fire in his belly. His cheeks flared; he couldn’t hold the glance.

A little before three, Pine went for his cigarette break. Breathing a cloud of smoke and condensation into the cold air, he stared unhappily at the mountains around him. The snow glowed a faint blue in the moonlight.

As he’d expected, footsteps soon crunched behind him.

“Mr Roper, sir,” he said without turning. 

“Mr Pine.” Roper joined him at this side. “Still looking to the stars for reassurance?” Pine nodded, lips twitching. 

“It’s what I do with my breaks, I’m afraid,” he said.

“Yes, well,” said Roper. “Meisters is very good for that. Whenever I come here it’s to relax and reflect. Haven’t done much of either lately. The world turns and it’s _busy busy busy…”_ A huff of laughter, without much humor. “We leave in a day or so,” he added abruptly. “Do you intend to stay on for the time being?”

“Unless something comes up, yes.”

“Well then. I’ll remember the Meisters’ beautiful and desolate night manager with fondness until our next meeting.”

Pine blushed hotly in the darkness.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, sir,” he said. 

“Which was it?” asked Roper in reply.

“Sir?”

“Which war did you serve in?”

“Iraq.”

He wished he could properly see Roper’s face. Was he remembering all the weapons he’d traded in that war in particular? Going through each canister of gas in his catalogue of a brain? Perhaps some of the bullets he’d sold had found their way into Pine’s gun. The thought should not have been as erotic as it was.

_One furtive jerk-off and you become an infatuated schoolgirl,_ he chided himself. 

“How long were you over there?”

Pine shrugged and blew out another cloud of smoke.

“Long enough to be changed by it.” At the man’s questioning glance, he added -- “I saw things there that made me ashamed to be a human.” _And then the war ended, but the carnage didn’t go away_ , he added silently. 

“Do you see anyone?” Roper asked, as if reading Pine’s thoughts. Pine shook his head. 

“Used to, but… it wasn’t working for me. I wanted all the shit to stop immediately. Apparently that’s not how therapy works.”

Roper was watching him, something between pity and curiosity in his eyes.

“It’s been a long time since the war,” he murmured. “And still you live in self-imposed exile, afraid of the world and her children.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Yes, you are.” The words were harsh, but the tone itself was tender. But Pine tossed what was left of his cigarette away, turned, and headed for the door back inside. 

“Cold?”

The word made Pine stop in his tracks.

“I’m fine,” he said at last. He knew without needing to look that Roper was gazing after him. What would it look like? His hands would be in the pockets of his fleece overcoat, a great black-grey smudge against the white and blue landscape. He didn’t want to leave, but neither could he stay there with Roper, with the scent of his cologne mingling with the blood he kept imagining on the air. 

_One furtive jerk-off and you fucking_ melt _._

_Don’t you know who he is and what he does?_ That last came in the voice of Sophie, battered, bloody, disappointed. Hurt.

_But he cares. For some reason._

Pine couldn’t hold himself back. He turned back around and went to Roper, snow crunching beneath the soles of his shoes, and kissed him.

Perhaps that had been a mistake. Roper froze and Pine immediately pulled back, wondering if he’d violated some sort of unspoken code. That took him back to army days, when the objective was simply to get off. Where _tongue-fucking_ was an afterthought. 

But Roper gathered him close against his chest, his body heat comforting. Strange, how they’d gone from conversation to getting off in a broom closet and managed to bypass what now seemed an essential part of the process. 

Roper’s fingers carded through his hair.

“They really did break you there, didn’t they?” he murmured.

_You broke me. Twice over_ , thought Pine as Roper’s arms encircled him more tightly, lips pressing against his, tongue slipping into his mouth. He couldn’t help feeling as though his legs had turned to water. 

“Where do you live, Pine?” Roper asked after a few minutes of holding him.

“Not far,” he replied. His voice was muffled in Roper’s coat.

“Show me?” Pine swallowed hard, glad that Roper couldn’t see his face. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to show _anyone_ the bare honesty of his apartment, let alone the man who’d brought him to that bareness. Roper tilted his face upwards, softly closing his mouth on his. “Hm?”

Pine weakened, nodding.

“Yeah. After I finish work. I can take you there, if you really want me to.”

“I do.”

_This is my last refuge_ , he thought. _This is my home and you will force your way inside as you have everything else._

_No. Not force. You will put it into my head and I’ll invite you in of my own volition._

_But it’s not my will. I don’t know what I want._

He sighed and let Roper kiss away the cold.

 

It occurred to Pine on the train ride back home that it was the first time he’d really seen Roper in natural light. The man sat comfortably on the faux-leather seats; he seemed to have an innate ability to make himself at home wherever he was, like a cat. Beside him, Pine felt on edge and uncomfortable. Perhaps Roper noticed the way his hands clenched and unclenched. He did not put his arm around him, as he might have done were they alone, but he did press his left leg against Pine’s right, a silent kind of comfort. 

And then they were on the threshold of the apartment and Pine was standing aside to let Roper enter first, feeling all too conscious of how bare everything was. Roper looked around, taking everything in.

“The bathroom is just down the hall,” Pine said.

“And the bedroom?” asked Roper without turning around. Pine felt a traitorous blush rise to his cheeks. 

“Down the hall as well. I don’t sleep there,” he added shortly.

“I can see that.” Roper nodded to the pillows piled against the armrest of the nearby couch. At long last he turned to face Pine. “What do you do when you come home?”

“I eat something and then I go to bed,” Pine said honestly. “And then, when my alarm goes off, I get up, eat something, and go to work again.”

“Living like a soldier,” Roper observed. He nodded to the bookshelf that leaned against one wall and was visually the room’s only decoration. “Except for this, I see. Some civilian comforts sneaked in there.” He crossed there and picked up a book at random. “Lawrence of Arabia?”

_No. You won’t taint my father’s books too. You don’t get to have my past, or him, or anything before Egypt._

He took the book from him, forgetting momentarily who Roper was. 

“Please don’t touch that,” he said. The other man didn’t seem to take offense.

“Sentimental value?”

“Yes.”

Pine went to the window, trying to push away all his anxieties. He didn’t want to look at Roper, who still gazed around the apartment as if there were anything there that could hold his interest. _This,_ he thought with an anger that surprised him, _is what you sell. Are you fucking proud?_

He jumped when Roper placed his hands on his shoulders, leaning close enough that he could feel the man’s breath on the back of his neck. A murmured _shhh_ in his ear and Roper was then pulsing his shoulders with firm movements of his fingers and palms. In spite of himself, Pine groaned and leaned backwards against him. When Roper dipped his head to nuzzle into his neck, Pine was barely surprised. 

“ _My good fortune means nothing if it does not also raise up my fellow man.”_

_“He sells destruction and laughs.”_

_“Jonathan, there’s bloody napalm on here!”_

A tugging at his neck told him that, just like the other night, Roper was undoing his tie, letting it fall to the floor without care. Then he started on the buttons of his shirt, still kissing his way up and down Pine’s neck, lips tugging and worrying at the skin. 

_He’ll have me here,_ he thought. _Of course he will. He’s Richard Roper and he gets what he wants._

And if he wanted to take him in his last place of refuge, then so be it.

He was shaking when he turned in Roper’s arms and started on the buttons of his shirt; a combination of nerves at having never done this before and at doing this with _Roper_ of all people, the man he’d sworn he’d hate for the rest of his life…

Roper carefully laid him back on the couch, huffing with amusement at Pine’s blush when he reached into his trousers to caress him through the fabric of his boxer-briefs. _Strange_ , thought the last lucid cells of Pine’s brain. _You’ve already been here with him and yet you still blush like a schoolboy._ He was suddenly seized by a desire to show him that he was more than a desperate hermit, that he could hold his own.

He undid the rest of Roper’s buttons with urgency. Then an awkward pause as they both kicked off their shoes. Pine made for Roper’s belt, but Roper himself was quicker. He tossed it aside and Pine heard it land metallically on the carpet. They shrugged out of their open shirts. Running his hands through Pine’s hair, nails scratching deliciously against his scalp, Roper bent down to kiss him long and hard. Their tongues brushed together for a moment and both of them grinned at the sensation.

“Hang on --” Pine managed between kisses as he sat up. “Need --” He stood awkwardly due to the weight of his throbbing erection, and carefully made his way to the bedroom down the hall. The dresser was one of the few items in the room of which he made use; Pine rifled through the top drawer with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking until he found the small bottle of lube he’d put there a while back.

When he looked up, his reflection in the mirror over the dresser was gazing back at him. His lips were red and swelling, hair mussed, the skin of his neck red and abused.

_I must be mad_ , he thought. 

Movement in the doorway caught his eye. Roper stood there, shirtless, leaning with one hand on the frame of the door, watching him with eyes dark with lust. There was a surprising lack of menace there. Instead, there was almost something tender in the way he looked at him. Pine didn’t want to think about it.

Tentatively, he placed the bottle in Roper’s hand. Roper looked at it, seemingly in dull surprise, before leaning over and pressing his mouth to Pine’s forehead and then to his lips, taking purposeful steps forward as the kiss deepened, tongue slipping into his mouth. Pine fell back on the bed that was really just a mattress. Shedding their last layers in a burst of haste, they kissed deeply, ignoring the faint scent of dust that clung to everything.

“You’re all leg, aren’t you?” he murmured, bringing Pine’s knees up to his chest and kissing each one. Pine tensed as his hand reached past his erection to his ring of muscle and Roper whispered reassurances against his throat. 

“ _Ah_ \--” 

Roper traced his finger in a neat circle -- wet, from the lube -- and then eased inside. 

“Tell me,” he said, quite conversationally, “where’d the lube come from?” Pine let out a puff of breath, hands at Roper’s shoulders. “Bottle’s not exactly full, is it?”

“Oh, shut up.” He said it rather harshly, but Roper didn’t admonish him or seem to take offense, merely laughing before adding another finger. The stretch was delicious. 

The act itself was fairly quick once they’d prepped enough. But it was that first moment of union that clung in Pine’s mind: when Roper had held his gaze as he eased his way in, and Pine could only wonder why he was allowing this to happen. Somewhere, he could hear Sophie weeping.

Roper cupped his face in both hands and kissed him, hips rolling forward as Pine gritted his teeth, hissing, and he could hear the older man’s voice purring in his ear, hot breath against the shell --

“ _Jonathan…”_

He wrapped his arms around Roper’s back and gulped as he pulled out, almost leaving him entirely. 

“Don’t -- no -- want you --” He couldn’t make himself say it, but Roper understood and suddenly Pine was full again and panting. Their rhythm grew quicker, a little harsher as they both drew closer to climax. It had been a long time since Pine had allowed anyone to touch him like this and now all of it, all at once… He felt as though he were losing his virginity all over again.

And why was Roper bothering in the first place? Was it regret, in a way? Was there such a thing as _sorry that I not-so-indirectly caused your PTSD_ sex? 

Or had he seen him and simply wanted to sleep with him? Could it be as easy as that? Could desire ever be that uncomplicated?

At some point his panting had turned into hyperventilation, his heart hammering, and Pine knew that if Roper saw his face, it would ruin everything. 

“Hang on --” he managed, pushing back on his shoulders. Roper pulled out and Pine rolled onto his hands and knees. The world swung back and forth for a moment, then righted itself. He didn’t like this position -- too much openness, not enough dignity -- but at least his expression was hidden.

He pushed inside him again and Pine moaned out loud, fingers clawing at the mattress, the springs of which creaked rhythmically as their bodies moved back and forth, back and forth...

He couldn’t touch himself and keep his balance, but that didn’t matter because Roper’s hand had already closed around his cock. 

It had been years since he’d been touched like this and he fell apart embarrassingly soon. But it wasn’t much longer after that that Roper buried his head in Pine’s neck and came with a low groan. The mattress complained again as he rolled beside Pine, who sank onto his stomach, ignoring the wetness against his skin. 

_What have I done?_

_I’m so sorry, Sophie. So fucking sorry._

When he rolled onto his back, he realized belatedly and with a grimace that they hadn’t used a condom. That sent another wave of anxiety and loathing through him. What if Roper wasn’t clean? What if he ended up fucking up his life _again_? 

And if even if he _was_ clean, there was still something so… Pine didn’t know how to define it. In a brutal, carnal way, Roper had marked him. 

He couldn’t vomit this one out, as much as he might have liked to.

“What are you thinking about?” Roper asked, propping himself on one arm. Pine forced a smile.

“Nothing.”

“Liar. You’re not that sort.” 

“What sort am I, then?”

“Don’t know,” said Roper. His lips twitched as he leaned forward to kiss the side of Pine’s jaw. “You funny fish.”

Pine, lost in his own thoughts, was only dimly aware of Roper leaving the room to retrieve the blanket from the sofa. His stomach was roiling, the way it had the night they’d gotten off in the broom closet. God. There was absolutely no part of this that wasn’t wrong, that didn’t turn his guts, that didn’t make him want to hit rewind on his life and hold until he was sixteen again. So he’d have ample time to turn his life around before anything like _this_ could happen.

The room was spinning again. And there was Roper at his side again, who managed to simultaneously be a comfort and a catalyst. 

The fuzziness of his head lingered, even when Roper began making advances once more. Pleasure was distant when Pine rode him later -- as though he were watching it all happen to somebody else. 

If it were a normal day, he’d already have gone to bed. But no, here he was stretched out on the bare mattress with Richard Roper beside him. Deep breaths. He’d fallen asleep. 

_You’ve gotten what you wanted_ , Pine wanted to say. _Why are you still here?_

Roper tugged him closer in sleep and, in spite of himself, he nestled into his arms.

 

Roper was gone when he awoke, as where his clothes from the living room. A note had been left on the dresser --

_Enjoyed today. I’ll see you this evening and then it’s goodbye until next year, I’m afraid._

_Best wishes,_

_R.R._

Pine looked up from the note -- messy cursive -- to his reflection in the mirror over the dresser. He looked ravaged: his hair tousled, red crescents on his chest from where Roper had held him. His lips had swollen. All this to say nothing of the slick sensation of something trickling down the inside of his thigh. His gorge rose and he choked down bile as he ran to the bathroom.

Cold jets of water blasted across his skin as he stood shivering beneath shower head, raking his hands through his hair and scrubbing at every inch of himself that he could reach. There had to be some way to purge himself of the dirtiness he felt and, perhaps more importantly, how badly he had wanted all of it. 

There had to be a way.

Several minutes later he stumbled from the shower, shivering in the cold air, as he reached for his mouthwash and took a great gulp of it. Green suds spilled into the porcelain sink. His mouth burned with the alcohol and spearmint, his eyes watering, but he felt a little cleaner. Sharper. 

He seized his dressing gown from the hook on the door with one shaking hand and wrapped it around himself, not bothering to dry off first. Then he made his way unsteadily to the front room and collapsed onto the sofa.

He was asleep before he could think. And that was probably a blessing.

 

The evening was cast bloodily against the crisp snow as Pine disembarked the train to work, pulling his coat more tightly around himself. Within half an hour he was ready for his shift. The Roper party was already packing, planning to leave around six o’clock to catch a flight to… who knew? 

Miss Marshall passed by several times with her suitcases, giving him a rather knowing look. Once, he could have sworn she winked at him. Evidently her relationship with Richard Roper was not an exclusive one -- but whether that wink was meant as gentle teasing for earlier that day, or as an attempt to ensnare him for herself on their last night there, Pine had no clue.

Roper appeared just once, looking rather harried. To Pine’s intense discomfort, he stopped at his side.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a fag, would you?” he asked in an undertone. Pine gave him a crooked smile and took one from the packet in his jacket pocket. “Thanks terribly.”

He lit up, ignoring the NO SMOKING sign on the opposite wall with blasé indifference. Pine didn’t feel like calling him on it. 

“Will that be all, sir?”

“I think so, for the moment.” He gave him a considering look. “You know, you do very well at this job.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You and your _sirs._ ” Roper made a _hmph_ of laughter. “Until next time, Mr Pine.”

“Mr Roper.”

He walked on and Pine found himself turning his head to watch him make his way to the elevator, press the button, and let the metal doors swallow him with a metallic clang. 

Herr Strippli was saying his name. Pine turned back to the older man with a ready smile and stepped forward to usher the guests just checking in. In the windows the final flares of sunlight vanished behind the horizon. Night had come again.

 

Several hours later, at about three-forty in the morning, Pine sat numbly on the train back home with dawn breaking weakly across the sky and craved a cigarette.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are greatly appreciated! You can find me on tumblr @williamshakennotstirred. 
> 
> I don't bite!


End file.
